Hezbollah official rules out talk of arms handover until Israel withdraws

A Hezbollah official says the Iran-backed terror group categorically refuses to discuss handing over its weapons to Lebanon’s army unless Israel withdraws completely from the south and stops its “aggression.”

A ceasefire agreement in November ended more than a year of hostilities between Hezbollah and Israel, sparked by the group’s incessant attacks on Israel amid the Gaza war, including two months of open warfare that decimated the group’s leadership.

Israel says the five points it continues to hold in south Lebanon are critical to ensuring northern residents’ safety. It also continues to carry out airstrikes in Lebanon in response to what it says are violations of the ceasefire.

“It is not a question of disarming,” Wafiq Safa says in an interview with Hezbollah’s Al-Nur radio station. “What the president (Joseph Aoun) said in his inauguration speech is a defensive strategy.”

Safa, said by experts to belong to the movement’s most radical faction, says Hezbollah has conveyed its position to Aoun, who on Tuesday said he sought “to make 2025 the year of restricting arms to the state” alone.

In his interview, Safa asks: “Wouldn’t it be logical for Israel to first withdraw, then release the prisoners, then cease its aggression… and then we discuss a defensive strategy?”

“The defensive strategy is about thinking about how to protect Lebanon, not preparing for the party to hand over its weapons.”